Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 126547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
He came with a cry originating from the depths of his chest, his whole body closing around Emil’s strong form. Adam grabbed at Emil’s back, scratched, and bit Emil’s shoulder when pleasure became more than he could handle.
As he panted, legs still tight around Emil, he was too exhausted to investigate why the room suddenly smelled of sulphur and burning meat. But then he saw smoke swirling above Emil’s back, and something sizzled, like food tossed into hot oil.
Emil’s eyes widened, and he pulled away with a deafening shriek.
Chapter 10 - Emil
Emil rolled off the bed in panic as agony thundered through the nerve endings of his back and shoulders. Blinding at first yet short-lived, it left behind a constant, throbbing ache that burned with heat.
On hands and knees, he pressed his forehead to the floorboards, heaving, as if his body couldn’t cope with the onslaught of torment and needed to purge. Yet as his head stopped spinning, he mindlessly reached to his shoulder, only to recoil when he touched twisted flesh.
“What happened? What is this?” he cried, both confused and afraid of this new reality where a lover chose to attack him.
But no. He saw Adam watching him with pure terror, his naked body trembling when he looked around as if he couldn’t comprehend where he was and what had happened.
“No. No,” Adam whimpered, shaking his head.
Nausea still twisted in Emil’s gut, but the need to know what happen won, and he crawled to his wardrobe on all fours, ignoring the way old wood scratched his knees. He swung the door open and rose, staring into the mirror attached to its inner side. On his shoulder blades were two dark imprints of hands. Exactly where Adam had held on to him. The air still smelled of grilled meat, and Emil found it hard to breathe. “Adam. I think they’re burns. What the fuck, Adam? I’m freaking out—”
“It’s all my fault. He marked you too,” Adam said before looking down his naked body while his chest heaved as if he were on the verge of a heart attack.
Whatever this was, Emil put his own pain and confusion on the back burner when he saw the distraught expression on Adam’s face. He took a deep breath. “Okay. Calm down. Come with me, I need to pour water over it fast.”
His mind was blank, filled only with the memories of Adam writhing under him in pleasure. Everything else, was too shocking to contemplate.
“I think he’s still inside me. The demon who followed me since I came here. It’s all his doing,” Adam said and stepped off the bed so erratically he fell over on the other side.
Emil circled the bed, ignoring the searing heat in the burns for now, because Adam wasn’t himself, and Emil didn’t want to leave him. “What demon?” he asked, but his stomach clenched, heavy as if he’d swallowed a dozen lead balls. “Did you take… drugs? Ate wild mushrooms or berries?”
Minutes ago, Adam had been excited and pliant, he’d even come here and made the first move yet now he blamed it all on demons. Emil was dying to dismiss it as a religious breakdown, but the stinging burns wouldn’t let him forget that the logical explanation didn’t resolve the issue of Adam’s palms searing his skin.
Blue eyes watched him from the floor, but Adam backed away as soon as he saw Emil. His breath seemed erratic as he pulled on the comforter and hid behind it.
“He brought me here. You have to believe me. And I can still feel him. He’s watching us!”
“Are you really saying the devil made you do it?” Emil wanted to laugh it off, even if bitterly, but couldn’t, because things were getting far too freaky for his liking.
The electricity was out, and a storm—the storm had stopped. Rain had beaten against the window before, but now the world outside was dead silent.
Emil took in the room with goosebumps prickling his skin, and he slowly grabbed the thick broom he’d left by the wardrobe.
At his feet, Adam hid his head between his knees, toes digging into the wood as he rocked back and forth, mumbling something Emil couldn’t understand.
The crows screamed outside, all of them at once, like a morbid choir, and the harsh, triumphant sound made Emil’s muscles calcify.
“It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me who came here. It was him,” Adam whispered before looking up, his face stricken with sweat, gaze darting to all the darkest corners of the room as if he saw something Emil couldn’t.
Emil hated what Adam was suggesting, but chose to focus on the here and now. “Listen, I don’t believe in God per se, but I do believe there are… things in the world that we don’t understand. Spirits. Maybe. You need to tell me what happened.”